By Srinivasan Mohan

0

20-Mar-2013 08:18:00

The national team will play these matches in June as the Indian FA looks to organize more matches to improve the ranking of the country amongst others in the world.

In what could be a serious step in improving upon the country's FIFA ranking, the All India Football Federation (AIFF) revealed that India would play three international friendlies, all of which would be in Europe, during June this year.

"We will be playing on June 5 and June 11 and one more friendly, the date of which hasn’t been finalised yet. We will play all the three matches in Europe," AIFF secretary Kushal Das, said on Tuesday to The Telegraph.

Das however said that the opponents have not been finalised as of yet. The Blue Tigers lost their last friendly at home to Palestine which was followed by a disappointing AFC Challenge Cup qualifiers campaign. However the positives to take from these failures was that the country's ranking rose from 167 to 143.

I-League CEO Sunando Dhar clarified on the kick-off timings for I-League games at Kolkata which will now be held at Kalyani Stadium till the end of March. Matches will begin at 2 PM IST with Salt Lake Stadium being booked for the IPL opening ceremony.

"We have no other option. From April onwards, though, the kick-off will be at 3 pm," said Dhar.

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